His mother wanted him home in Old Saybrook, Conn. for Christmas, no excuses, no matter what. His boss demanded that he spend Dec.25 in Lower Manhattan at the offices of the investment bank where he worked. There was a pitch to prepare and perfect before the managing director went on vacation in two days.

“It’s not as if I had a choice. It was be here or be fired,” says John (last name withheld), who was 23 at the time.

Knowing that he was going to have to disappoint someone, John picked his mother, even though she had warned him that he was being taken as a pawn and called his boss a Scrooge.

After all, “I knew I’d have a chance to redeem myself with Mom,” he says.

Regardless, John, who is now 34 and a managing director at a different Wall Street bank, now believes he made the wrong choice

His boss came into the office the following day, looked at what John and his co-workers had prepared and “shredded it,” demanding that they start all over.

“I called my mother that morning crying,” says John. “I was exhausted. I had given up Christmas with my family and hurt my mom. I was inconsolable.”

His mother prepared a plate of leftovers and a tin of Christmas cookies and made the two-hour drive to the city.

“I don’t know what she wanted to do more, give me a hug or a lecture about work-life balance,” he says.

Unfortunately, there is no balance when you’re in a two-year analyst program, says Roy Cohen, a career counselor and author of “The Wall Street Professional’s Survival Guide” (FT Press). “Boundaries are unacceptable when you’re a new investment banking analyst. It’s always a scramble to get to the finish line,” he says.

In other words, John and his mother needed to “suck it up,” or find a different profession, Cohen says.

While most bosses don’t demand that their charges be in the office on Christmas, a survey conducted by West Unified Communications Services reveals that two out of three workers will check their office e-mail more than once on Christmas Day, and 38 percent said that they have taken a work call or meeting on Dec. 25.

One alternative is to ask someone who might not be as passionate about the holiday to switch “shifts” — maybe you can fill in for them on New Year’s Eve. If that doesn’t work, “weigh your profession against your work-life balance” and be prepared to deal with the fallout, she says.

It’s not just clocking in on holidays that brings out interesting behaviors at Christmastime. Sometimes exchanging gifts in the workplace also makes for uncomfortable scenarios.

Tracy, a 35-year-old project manager who lives in Brooklyn Heights, was presented with a 12-pack of waterless shower sheets from her boss last Christmas.

“I’m still trying to figure out if he thinks I stink, if he swiped it from his wife’s yoga bag because he had to come up with something last minute, or if it was something that someone gave him,” she says.

Her latter thought is highly plausible. A LinkedIn survey that came out earlier this month found that 43 percent of professionals say that they have received an obvious re-gift from a colleague. About the same number indicated that they received office supplies or something that the company already owned as a present.

Pamela Shand of East Orange, NJ, says that while working for a food and beverage conglomerate a few years ago she received a bag filled with a box of pasta, spices, juice boxes, quinoa and other food items.

“Basically, I went home with a bunch of random groceries,” says the 33-year-old, who now runs Offer Stage Consulting in Midtown.

Jim, a 33-year-old manager at a real estate conglomerate near Rockefeller Center, got an uncooked 17-pound Smithfield ham from one of his subordinates.

“I suppose that it’s the thought that counts, but what was she thinking? It wouldn’t even fit in my refrigerator,” he says.

The “fit” or the appropriateness of the gift may not be an anomaly. A national workplace survey conducted by Staples found that almost half of employees said that the biggest challenge of office holiday gifting is finding an appropriate gift

And while most of the people surveyed indicated that they would like to exchange presents with their bosses and co-workers, they also said that the process of acquiring the gifts is barely more pleasant than going to the dentist or cleaning their homes.

Cohen says that while exchanging gifts in the workplace is well-intended, it can cause all kinds of problems. “The potential to trip is great,” he says.

So if you’re sitting at home without any presents from your boss or co-workers, it might not be so bad. And next year, if you want to gift someone, simply “write a thoughtful note,” says Cohen.